Painter, printmaker and teacher, born in Glasgow, where he attended the Academy and its School of Art, gaining his diploma from Royal College of Art, 1933. Then trained as a teacher at Moray House, Edinburgh, and after a brief period teaching in Birmingham joined the staff of Glasgow Academy where, apart from war service, he stayed until retirement in 1967. During the war he served first in the London Fire Brigade during the Blitz before enlisting with Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He took part in 30 active operations as a rear gunner in Lancasters, winning the Distinguished Flying Cross. Orr built a house to his own design at Kippen, near Stirling, where he lived from 1960. He was an elder of the church there, which has some of his pictures.
Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)